We stumbled upon this book at the library, and found it to be a great introduction to talk to your child about sequencing (and teach them a new big word and it's meaning).
"Jack was running like mad in the dark woods with a hen under his arm. Previously, he had stolen the hen and climbed down a beanstalk."
But do you know what was Jack doing before he climbed down the beanstalk? Or what Jack and Jill were arguing about before they went up the hill? And what happened before that? Every story, every person, and every thing started somewhere . . .[Amazon.com Product Description]
After reading this book to my daughter for the "umpteenth" time I had the idea to elaborate on the word "Previously" and test her sequencing and storytelling skills.
One of the fairy tales mentioned in the book is The Gingerbread Man. I found these Gingerbread Man sequencing story cards online (this one happened to be a series of 11 - for younger children, I would suggest a smaller series). After reading "Previously" one more time, I pulled out the sequencing cards and reviewed the story of The Gingerbread Man with my daughter as we went through the each of the cards.
Image found on Daycareresource.com
We went over The Gingerbread Man story again - only this time I had my daughter put each card on the ground in a row as we talked about that particular part of the story (this took up most of our living room floor). Next, I had my daughter tell me the story, in her own words, as we moved from card to card. To finish, we started at the end or our sequence, and told the story in reverse order using the word "Previously" (in a very dramatic voice) as our connecting word while we moved to the "previous" card.
How fun would it be to enhance this activity by baking your own gingerbread men and using the cookie cutters pictured below!
You are such a good mom! That is such a great skill to be working on… and fun at the same time. You gave me those cookie cutters a few years ago and we love them!! They are so funny to use.